John and Georgia Angelos have hired Goldman Sachs to assess the prospects for selling the team

[Sports Guy]

31 minutes ago, hutchead said:

I don't get all this talk about how valuable Elias is. I mean don't get me wrong - I like the guy and I think he's done a great job with this rebuild. BUT, he rebuilt the Orioles using a tanking strategy that is no longer allowed. I highly doubt he could be as successful building another club.

Also, he has no experience whatsoever in the next important phase of the rebuild - signing the right free agents and trading from among his surplus minor leaguers to fill holes. I hope he can do as well in these areas.

Tanking is absolutely allowed.  It’s just a question of how high the pick will be.  But there are other things that come with tanking.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

Truth, but we are entering a window here where to get to the next level, some money needs to be spent. I doubt that's going to happen if they are trying to maximize the value of the team. 

I don’t understand this logic, which I hear all the time.  To me, a good team that is putting butts in seats is more valuable than a bad one that has a deteriorating brand.   Higher payroll is okay so long as it is money spent intelligently.   Obviously a bad contract like Davis hurts the value of the team.  A good contract helps the value of the team even if it’s costly, IMO.

[hutchead]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Tanking is absolutely allowed.  It’s just a question of how high the pick will be.  But there are other things that come with tanking.

Well, sure it's allowed. You just aren't rewarded the way Elias was when he did it. He finished with the worst record twice which guaranteed him the top draft pick. If he finished with the worst record now he would only have a 16.5% chance of getting the top pick and could drop to as low as seventh.

[Can_of_corn]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Tanking is absolutely allowed.  It’s just a question of how high the pick will be.  But there are other things that come with tanking.

Higher profits.

[accinfo]

1 hour ago, hutchead said:

I don't get all this talk about how valuable Elias is. I mean don't get me wrong - I like the guy and I think he's done a great job with this rebuild. BUT, he rebuilt the Orioles using a tanking strategy that is no longer allowed. I highly doubt he could be as successful building another club.

Also, he has no experience whatsoever in the next important phase of the rebuild - signing the right free agents and trading from among his surplus minor leaguers to fill holes. I hope he can do as well in these areas.

I think Elias has done much more than employ a tanking strategy.  Look at the bullpen he has put together this year?  He has evaluated players very well.  Yes they have picked at the top of the drafts but they have picked well.  Gunnar Henderson and Adley have a chance to be transformative players for the Orioles.  The depth in the farm system is pretty good pretty fast.  

[hutchead]

43 minutes ago, accinfo said:

I think Elias has done much more than employ a tanking strategy.  Look at the bullpen he has put together this year?  He has evaluated players very well.  Yes they have picked at the top of the drafts but they have picked well.  Gunnar Henderson and Adley have a chance to be transformative players for the Orioles.  The depth in the farm system is pretty good pretty fast.  

Yes, I agree he's picked well but it's easy to pick well when you have the first pick twice in four years. All I'm saying is if he had to pick going by today's rules, it's highly unlikely he would have drafted Adley or Holliday.

[baltfan]

1 hour ago, hutchead said:

Yes, I agree he's picked well but it's easy to pick well when you have the first pick twice in four years. All I'm saying is if he had to pick going by today's rules, it's highly unlikely he would have drafted Adley or Holliday.

Nationals had tons of high picks.  Did they really hit on anyone after the first round?  I don’t particularly remember.  Of course Soto was outside of the draft. 

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, hutchead said:

Yes, I agree he's picked well but it's easy to pick well when you have the first pick twice in four years. All I'm saying is if he had to pick going by today's rules, it's highly unlikely he would have drafted Adley or Holliday.

Fair enough, but the early returns show Elias maximizing his opportunity.  And it’s not just Adley.

By rWAR, Gunnar is already the 9th best no. 42.pick of all time.   The best no. 42 pick of all time had 25.7 rWAR.  Would you bet against Gunnar topping that total?  Long ways off, I know, but I wouldn’t.  Only 7 of 41 players picked ahead of Gunnar in 2019 have more rWAR than he does.

Stowers was picked 71st, where only 26 of 55 picks have made the majors.  He’s there already, currently ranked no. 17 among the 55 in rWAR.  (There’s actually been 58 no. 71 picks, but I’m not counting the ones drafted after Stowers.)  Only 24 of the 70 players picked ahead of Stowers have made the majors, and in that group, he’s tied for 16th in rWAR.

Only five second rounders from 2019 have made the majors so far, and Elias has two of them.   Pretty good so far.  
 

[Sports Guy]

11 hours ago, accinfo said:

I think Elias has done much more than employ a tanking strategy.  Look at the bullpen he has put together this year?  He has evaluated players very well.  Yes they have picked at the top of the drafts but they have picked well.  Gunnar Henderson and Adley have a chance to be transformative players for the Orioles.  The depth in the farm system is pretty good pretty fast.  

Tanking has zero to do with the bullpen this year and the depth of the system really isn’t because of tanking.  

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, hutchead said:

BUT, he rebuilt the Orioles using a tanking strategy that is no longer allowed.

I don't follow. Because there's now a draft lottery? The main point of tanking is to save ownership tons of money and (perhaps) build up infrastructure, scouting, analytics, etc. Drafting 6th instead of 2nd barely moves the needle.

There are seven teams that could still lose 100 games this year.

[hutchead]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't follow. Because there's now a draft lottery? The main point of tanking is to save ownership tons of money and (perhaps) build up infrastructure, scouting, analytics, etc. Drafting 6th instead of 2nd barely moves the needle.

There are seven teams that could still lose 100 games this year.

I'm just saying that by the old rules if you finished with the worst record, you automatically received the top pick but by the new rules, you could very easily only have the seventh pick. HUGE difference in 1-1 versus 1-7.

[spleen1015]

So, Elias is only good because he could tank... well.... ROFL.

[jabba72]

If John or whomever is in charge allows Elias to spend without interference, i'd be fine with the Angelos family remaining as owners. If this was still Peter I'd be worried about Elias getting fired after his successful season. 

[hutchead]

23 minutes ago, spleen1015 said:

So, Elias is only good because he could tank... well.... ROFL.

 

 

 

And who made that comment?? I only said it is more difficult under the new rules for a general manager to rebuild versus the rules that were in place when Elias performed his rebuild.

[InsideCoroner]

15 hours ago, hutchead said:

I don't get all this talk about how valuable Elias is. I mean don't get me wrong - I like the guy and I think he's done a great job with this rebuild. BUT, he rebuilt the Orioles using a tanking strategy that is no longer allowed. I highly doubt he could be as successful building another club.

I couldn’t disagree more with this. You think he just tanked and got the best draft picks… that’s it? Nothing about dragging the club out of the Bronze Age and into a modern framework, focusing on player development, hiring 10x more analytics people than we had, hiring 5x more international scouting people than we had… none of that? The last four years were tough to endure… but I think Elias had been exactly what we needed.

As Frobby said, the Nats had high picks, but where did that get them? Our farm system has improved exponentially, and not just because of our first- and second-round picks. 

Could we have turned Austin Voth around ten years ago? I highly doubt it. Ten years ago, we would have let Voth go and someone else would have sorted him out. Just like Arrieta.